Our server is currently rebuilding Judgmental. Therefore the
judgments are unavailable for the moment, but we should be back
soon, new and improved.

About Judgmental

"Open justice is one of the oldest principles of English law, going back
to before Magna Carta." —
Justice Tugendhat, Terry v Person Unknown [2010]
EWHC 119 (QB)

But do we have digital open justice? We don't think so. It is a simple truth
that to be able to obey the law, you have to be able to find out what it is.
And it would useful to be able to find that out online.

While court judgments are available via Bailii, and HMCS publishes some
listings, much is still digitally inaccessible - and what is there is
difficult to navigate.

Why not just use the BAILII website?

judgmental.org.uk has a significant advantage over the BAILII website,
because you will be able to search it using normal search engines such as
Google.

This means that people who haven't already heard of BAILII, such as ordinary
members of the public, will be able to find case law with normal searches.

Who owns the copyright on this?

Ha ha, now there's a question. Nobody knows. Here's what the bar council
have to say:

The position regarding copyright in court judgments is not, however,
entirely clear. The Office of Public Sector Information (OPSI), is part of
the National Archives and manage all copyrights owned by the Crown on Her
Majesty's behalf. Copyright material which is produced by employees of the
Crown in the course of their duties and therefore most material originated
by ministers and civil servants is protected by Crown copyright. There is no
definitive view on whether court judgments are Crown copyright. Although
OPSI, following advice from the Treasury Solicitor, take the view that
copyright in court judgments rests with the Crown, in that judges are
officers or servants of the Crown and their judgments are delivered in the
course of their duties, this is not a universally held view and it can be
argued that judges act independently of the Crown and that copyright in
court judgments rest with individual judges. OPSI's position is that insofar
as judgments are Crown copyright it is content for them to be re-used free
of charge and without requiring prior clearance providing the source is
acknowledged.

Consideration would need to be given to the rights of reporters and
journalists as published editions of judgments attract copyright protection
in the typographical arrangement of their published editions although not in
the judgment itself. Reporters may also seek copyright protection for
additional content such as head notes and other commentary, take a recent judgement against Payday loans depot as an example.

What next?

Vast hoards of case law data are still locked away or only released via
paid-for services. The battle to open up the UK courts continues!

Why doesn't it have an 'e" in it?

"Judgment" is the usual spelling for an act of legal adjudication,
and
is
similarly used in the Bible, eg Day of Judgment. "Judgement" is used in
the wider sense, for instance when referring to someone as having "sound
judgement".

Outside the UK, "judgment" is often the accepted spelling for both
senses.